


Runaway

by alexisintheinternet, ophelianipples



Series: Mix tape [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek Hale Feels, Pack Feels, Songfic, implied sterek because i have no self control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 10:36:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2618717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexisintheinternet/pseuds/alexisintheinternet, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ophelianipples/pseuds/ophelianipples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dC4bHlNCr4</p><p>But I won't be no runaway<br/>'Cause I won't run</p>
            </blockquote>





	Runaway

Derek runs on autopilot, recognising the need to stay safe, to stay hidden, but when he gets back to the house, it's like the whole world slows down. Suddenly everything just seems so heavy. Holding Laura is almost too much for him - the thought of burying her, of saying goodbye, suffocating. He stands there, holding her - _half of her -_ for a long time. And when it's time to say goodbye, well. He kneels at the shallow grave for what feels like hours, mind stuck on this useless loop - _you were too late. you couldn't save her. you were too late. you can't save anyone._

 

He could leave. There's nothing left for him here, unless you count his bedridden uncle. He could just leave this hellhole, say goodbye to Beacon Hills forever. And good riddance, too.

 

And he _knows_ what she would say if she were here with him. He can see her as she was in the New York summers, after the fire, fierce and blinding under the sun, keeping them both afloat. Don't fucking run away from this, Derek. Do you think I came back and got murdered just so you can, what, just keep running? It won't get better, and you'll hate every moment of it, but you can't just leave. Now bury my fucking body and keep fucking fighting. 

 

So he does.

 

 ~~~

 

He throws himself into it. When he meets Scott and Stiles, he thinks about telling _them_ to run, the human especially, but the option doesn't seem to even _occur_ to Stiles. Scott is reticent, to say the least, but Stiles is just - he's right _there,_ all the time, all long limbs and sharp fear and - and willing to sacrifice so much. Derek tells him to run, over and over, but he never fucking does. 

 

Derek asks him why, one day. It's after Boyd - well, after Boyd. And Erica is already gone. They're in the loft, and that feeling comes over Derek again, heavy layers of grief settling like dust. 

 

He tells Stiles, _you should get out. Take your dad and go now, while you still can. Why are you still here?_

 

Stiles tells him to go fuck himself, but refuses to leave Derek "to brood yourself to death."

 

So they sit in silence until angry words start pouring out of Stiles. _It's not like I'm enjoying all of this, he says. You think I like watching my friends die, one by one? You think I like being the last person to see Heather alive? I couldn't save her, or Erica, or Boyd, I can't save my dad, I can't save Scott, okay, but that doesn't mean I can just leave. If we don't deal with this stuff, who will? If I run now, I'll never stop running, and my mum, my mum is buried in Beacon Hills, and she would never have run from this, so fuck you, Derek._ His voice is shaking and his hair is standing on end, but his eyes are hard and clear.

 

Derek thinks - not for the first time - Laura would have loved Stiles. Sometimes it’s still hard to believe that this world contains things like kanimas, werewolves, _hunters,_ but not Laura, not anymore. The afternoon sunlight brings her memory; he can see her dancing in the dust motes.

 

Derek breathes slowly. Laura would know what to do; she wouldn’t have fucked this up so monumentally.

 

 _What are we doing?_ His voice cracks on the words. _I hate this, I hate it._

 

When he tells Stiles that he and Cora are going away for a while, Stiles already knows, thanks to Scott. He tells Derek it’s okay, and Derek knows he’s lying. But when he says that Derek _needs_ to get away for a while, he’s telling the truth. Stiles’s room is bathed in moonlight and reeks of nightmares; Derek holds his gaze and promises to come back some day.

 

~~~

 

He treasures every moment with Cora. They go back to New York, and Derek shows her all the best places near his and Laura’s old apartment. They use insurance money to rent a double room in the fanciest hotel they can find, and they order room service the first few nights, too exhausted to really go anywhere. On the first night, they get drunk on wolfsbane-infused whiskey and cry a lot. On the second night, they make a pact to only talk about happy things. Those brownies their mum used to make all the time – that time when Laura made little Tay-Tay laugh while he was eating one, and he spat brown, gooey, chewed up brownie all over Cora. The way Peter used to accidentally wolf out when he sneezed, and dad loved to brew beer and wine. Nobody had to heart to say so, but it always tasted horrible – Derek knows, because once he and his older cousin Eric had snuck some away and got drunk in the woods. He still remembers the moment of panic when mum found them – she snuck up on them and just loomed into his field of vision, looking so angry – Derek had been so scared. He wants to be scared like _that_ again.

 

He starts to feel the pull back home, to Beacon Hills, to the pack, and he resists as he and Cora travel around the country – the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, places that make them feel small and insignificant.

 

They’re at Niagra Falls, and Cora says _, I don’t get why we’re alive, Derek. The amount of times I wanted to just drive to the nearest cliff and – why do we get to live, after everything, out of all of them?_

 

Derek stares at the foamy water. _Maybe there is no point,_ he replies. _The world is just cruel and beautiful and meaningless._

 

Cora giggles, and punches his arm. She makes them leave soon after that, in hopes that Derek will “stop being a sap,” but later she strokes his hair like their mother used to do.

 

She says, _Remember mum’s garden?_

How could he forget? He snorts out a laugh, remembering how terrible mum had been at keeping the stupid plants alive over winter. _We never understood why she spent so much time on something that she just had to replant every year._

 

_Like, yeah, it was pointless… but it was still something, you know?_

 

She doesn’t ask him not to go back to Beacon Hills, and he doesn’t ask her to go back there with him. It’s a painful place to be, but it’s still something.

 

~~~

 

The pack shatters, reforms, shatters, reforms, and somehow manages not to crumble. It's easier, now that he's just a beta – when he’s not in charge of them, fighting alongside the others is a good feeling.

 

At some point they’ve lost so many people that Stiles suggests they build a pack memorial in the Preserve. Everyone agrees, and Scott suggests a garden. A tree for each person, which is so cliché, but also somehow appropriate. Derek pays for the saplings, and he thinks he knows where his mum’s garden used to be, so he suggests that spot, and tells everyone how to do it – then he takes care of the saplings, and the whole pack makes time to help. They surround the place with every protective charm they can think of; it becomes a safe place.

 

Derek gets into the habit of shifting to his wolf form, once he’s watered the saplings, and lying between the saplings for Laura and his mum. In this shape he can feel grief without really _thinking_ about it.

 

They start talking to the trees as if they are people. One day, Derek accidentally wonders aloud if they’ll name a tree after him and talk to it, as if his consciousness still exists out there somewhere. Stiles laughs and laughs and promises to not to let death stop him from pissing Derek off. Then they sit together between _Talia_ and _Claudia,_ and Derek listens to Stiles talk to them, their mums, until the stars come out.

 

The world keeps throwing shit at them, and every time feels like it could be the last, but it’s not. Derek tells Laura’s tree, _I miss you,_ and, _I’m glad I didn’t run._


End file.
